


All That We See or Seem

by DaraOakwise



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Clara Has Two Boyfriends, Dream Communication, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Souffaldanny, capalxii's Flesh and Bone universe, time travel is possible in dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4671182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaraOakwise/pseuds/DaraOakwise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From their perspective, the Doctor had dinner with Clara and Danny just two days ago.  It's been longer for the Doctor. Much longer. And the terrible thing about loving a time traveler is that he can get in horrible trouble before he's even been gone long enough to worry about. Set in capalxii's "Flesh and Bone" universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That We See or Seem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [capalxii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Flesh and Bone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008928) by [capalxii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/pseuds/capalxii). 



> With permission, this story is set in capalxii's "Flesh and Bone" series. Reading that first is obviously recommended. But to summarize that 'verse: The Doctor resurrected Danny several months after his death, a process that has fused their dreams and lives, a fact that both the Doctor and Danny have slowly come to terms with. One thing they always agree on is their love for Clara, and Ellie, the daughter of many hearts. Clara has suspended her travel, for now, and Danny never wanted to go in the first place, so the Doctor has become a crucial, if maddeningly in-and-out member, of the Oswald-Pink household. And when he's gone, they worry about him, for good reason.

Danny sighed contentedly as he turned in bed and felt Clara's arms wrap around him and settle on his chest. No matter how they started the night, he always ended up this way -- enfolded by Clara. He listened down the hall for his daughter, but Ellie seemed to be sleeping soundly. Slightly awakened, he felt Clara burrow into his back, and then her breath on his neck gentled him into dreams.

Usually his dreams were the ordinary human type. But some nights they were not. The Doctor had reached into death itself and offered Danny a second chance, in the name of Clara's love. And that kind of thing had consequences. He didn't quite understand the ins and outs of it, but the white-hot immortality that sustained the Doctor had forged Danny's resurrection and seeped into Danny's dreams. The Doctor had once admitted that where the walls between them were thin, they could walk in each other's memories. And so, sometimes, a lonely children's home twisted into a desolate barn, and a boy cowered beneath the covers. Sometimes, death rained down around him, _from_ him, and he splashed through the blood of children as he ran. Sometimes he saved a world with fire, and screamed in agony as his body burned away.

Tonight, Danny dreamed about Clara. He was lost, weeping alone in the dark, until she took his hand and led him into the light. She found him, she saved him, as she always had, when all he wanted to do was protect her ... _you clever boy_ , she was saying, and he reached for her, his heart pounding so hard it felt like he had two. Then he was dreaming of lips on his throat, warm skin under his palms, the names of love on his tongue.

_Clara._

_Doctor._

_Danny._

In the dream, Danny opened his eyes. The dream solidified around him, the gold sands of a beach beneath his feet, waves churning on a shore, a ringed moon in the sky. He crunched through the damp sand to the shoreline, where the Doctor was waiting. His faces kept changing, but Danny knew it was the Doctor. He knew it same way that you knew the stranger in your dream was actually your mother or lover or best friend. He just knew; such was the logic of dreams.

"Danny," the Doctor said, looking, for a moment, like the Doctor Danny knew. His hands in is pockets, he stared meditatively out at the sea. The light slanted through his pale eyes until his face flickered again and his gaze darkened.

"This is a dream," Danny said, confidently lucid.

The Doctor smiled faintly. "For you," the Doctor said. "I'm not asleep. My mind is temporarily dissociated from my body. A reprieve, of sorts. I can't maintain it for long." The Doctor drew in a breath, unnecessary in dreams, that was just a bit too controlled.

Instantly worried, Danny asked: "Are you okay?"

The Doctor laughed humorlessly, still looking out to sea. "Occasionally, I have the misfortune of meeting people, usually humans, who would do anything to obtain the secrets of the universe," the Doctor said conversationally. "Unfortunately for me, their definition of 'anything' is not very creative. Brutal, but predictable. And I'm not inclined to give anything to those kind of people. So we are at an impasse. They are waiting for me to break. I am waiting for them to make a mistake."

Danny gaped at the Doctor, sputtering for words through his horror. _They are torturing him_ , Danny knew.

"Don't worry, Danny," the Doctor soothed. "I can hold out for much longer than they can be perfect."

"Where are you?" Danny asked urgently, grasping the Doctor's shoulder and turning him slightly. He was thin beneath his layers. Insubstantial. Gaunt. " _When_ are you?"

The Doctor looked at Danny for the first time. "Danny ..." he chided. "Beyond your help."

"Beyond Clara's?" Danny challenged.

The Doctor glared at Danny, his gaze betrayed and disappointed. "I thought we had a deal," he said. "I bring you back from the dead. You protect Clara."

"You try stopping her when she gets her 'impossible girl' on," Danny retorted.

The Doctor sighed. "I'm patient and undying, and this isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me, by a long stretch. This will end, eventually. I'll outlast their civilization if I have to. And when I'm strong enough, I'll come back next Wednesday, right on schedule, just fine. No need to worry Clara about this."

"How long?" Danny asked. "How long have you been away from us?" The Doctor shrugged twitchily. He knew. He always knew, the lord of time. He frequently prevaricated on the point, but whenever he entirely refused to say, couldn't even remember the human time scale well enough to invent a plausible lie, Danny knew it was very bad.

Danny shook his head. "Two days," he said mournfully. "For us, you've been gone two days. That isn't even enough time to worry about you."

The Doctor slid wearily to the cool ground, elbows on knees and his head in his hands. After a moment he shook himself, and grasped a twig that appeared so he could doodle in the dream-sand. "Two days?" he asked wistfully. "What did we do? Was it nice?"

Danny closed his eyes and fought back the prickle of tears. _He can't remember_. Danny sat heavily behind him, and pulled him back, supporting the Time Lord against his chest. The Doctor allowed it, accepting touches in his flickering dream form that he fought in the waking world. Or perhaps he was just too exhausted, his defenses spent.

"Yeah, it was good," Danny murmured into his hair. (Long, short, wild. Never ginger.) "Dinner. That vegan thing Clara has been experimenting with actually turned out. You brought us tomatoes from some summer, and fed Ellie mashed bananas. We took a walk in the park before bedtime, then you gave Ellie a bath and sang her a song, and she went right to sleep. Clara and I talked you into staying the night, and for once you were still with us in the morning."

"It sounds nice," the Doctor whispered hoarsely, his voice, even in dreams, suddenly gone. _Are you screaming somewhere, Doctor?_ Danny wondered. _Has anyone given you water this week?_

"I shouldn't have pulled you into this," the Doctor continued. His words low, his eyes closed, letting Danny hold him. "I'm sorry. But I saw you sleeping, and I couldn't help myself. Always Doctor Idiot. Don't tell Clara."

"Rest," Danny soothed noncommittally, but the Doctor was fading beneath his hands.

"You're waking up, Danny," the Doctor sighed. It was true. Danny could feel the cool pillow under his cheek and Clara's arms around his body. The Doctor turned and tapped Danny's forehead. His smile was fractured. "Ellie is crying. Wake up, Danny."

"Come home, Doctor," Danny cried, too late, as he opened his eyes to the soft dark of their room.

"I'll get her," Clara mumbled sleepily, squeezing him once before crawling out of bed to soothe their daughter, who was ramping up from fussy to upset.

Danny sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, then stared at them, flexing his fingers. He thought for a moment that he saw metal, but they were just ordinary hands. He'd expected to see the articulated joints of a Cyberman or -- no, wait, was it manacles and chains?

"God," Danny groaned, flopping back on the bed.

By the time Clara came back, Danny had the bedside light on, decision made. Clara tilted her head at him, curious, concerned. Danny reached for her hands and kissed her palms in preemptive apology. "I have something I need to tell you ..."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Poe's "A Dream Within a Dream":
> 
> Take this kiss upon the brow!/And, in parting from you now,/Thus much let me avow —/You are not wrong, who deem/That my days have been a dream;/Yet if hope has flown away/In a night, or in a day,/In a vision, or in none,/Is it therefore the less gone?/All that we see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream.
> 
> I stand amid the roar/Of a surf-tormented shore,/And I hold within my hand/Grains of the golden sand —/How few! yet how they creep/Through my fingers to the deep,/While I weep — while I weep!/O God! Can I not grasp/Them with a tighter clasp?/O God! can I not save/One from the pitiless wave?/Is all that we see or seem/But a dream within a dream?


End file.
